★ Grades 9–12 & College · Live Online Cohort · Simulation-Based · No Experience Needed
Rocket & Launch Vehicle Design Lab
Design. Simulate. Optimize. Defend your mission.
Students design a launch vehicle in professional open-source engineering software, simulate its flight in Python, quantify how wrong the simulation might be, then fly it on a scored Digital Flight Day and defend the design in a formal Mission Design Review — the way aerospace engineers actually work. No prior rocketry or Python experience needed.
🖥️ No hardware to buy: everything runs on a laptop using free, professional-grade open-source tools. Tuition is all you pay.
Rocket engineering, not rocket assembly
Anyone can glue a kit together. This is the engineering that happens first.
A $40 kit answers one question: does it fly? This program answers the questions an engineer has to answer before anything is built — why this diameter, why this fin geometry, why this motor, why this stability margin, and what happens when the wind is 15% stronger than you assumed. Students design a launch vehicle, simulate it, quantify the uncertainty, and defend the decisions.
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Design a real vehicle
Build a complete launch-vehicle configuration in OpenRocket — nose cone, body, fins, mass, recovery — and iterate it against a mission requirement you wrote yourself.
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Simulate it in Python
Move beyond point-and-click into RocketPy: six-degree-of-freedom trajectories, wind, thrust curves, and hundreds of Monte Carlo runs from guided notebooks.
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Prove you can be wrong
Sensitivity analysis, engineering margins and a formal FMEA. Real engineering is knowing how far off your model might be — and designing so it still works.
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Want to build hardware instead? The CanSat Space Engineering & Mission Control Lab is the hands-on build — real sensors, radio telemetry and a satellite prototype you keep. Many students do both: one teaches you to make hardware work, this one teaches you to design and defend the vehicle that carries it.
The spine of the program
Every student flies the same mission — digitally
Student rocketry competitions work by publishing a performance specification and letting teams engineer their way to it. This program runs on exactly that model, with one difference: the flight happens in simulation, and it is scored.
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Mission ATLAS-1 — the challenge. Carry a 90 g instrument package to an apogee of 1,150 ft, return it to the ground intact, with a total flight time between 62 and 68 seconds. Single stage. Maximum liftoff mass 750 g. Commercially available certified motors only.
Why this is harder than it looks
- Altitude and flight time fight each other. A bigger motor gets you to 1,150 ft — and blows past your time window on the way down unless you change the recovery.
- A bigger parachute fixes the descent time and adds drag and mass, which costs you apogee.
- Trimming mass raises apogee and makes the vehicle twitchier in wind.
- There is no single right answer. There is a defensible one — and that is the entire skill.
Digital Flight Day — how it's scored
- Your final configuration is flown through a randomized flight day you have not seen: wind, motor performance and build mass all vary within realistic bounds.
- Score is the average across many randomized flights, not one lucky run.
- Points are penalties — deviation from 1,150 ft, plus deviation from the time window. Lowest score wins.
- So a design that hits 1,150 ft on a perfect day but scatters badly loses to one that lands near-target every time. Robustness beats optimism — which is the real lesson.
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Why a Research Ignited mission and not a competition's: ATLAS-1 is our own specification and it changes each cohort. It is deliberately not the current-year task of any real competition — because if a student is entering one, their entry has to be their own work. Here they learn the method on our mission; they apply it independently to theirs. Same engineering, clean line.
The toolchain
Professional open-source engineering software
The same free tools used by university rocketry teams and serious amateur engineers. Everything runs on a normal laptop, and every licence is free for educational use — nothing to buy, nothing to install that costs money.
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OpenRocket
Vehicle design and flight simulation. Geometry, mass, centre of gravity and pressure, stability margin, motor database and altitude prediction.
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RocketPy
An open-source Python library for six-degree-of-freedom trajectory simulation — the step that separates this program from a design tool alone.
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Python + Colab
Guided notebooks so beginners run real computational analysis from session one. No installation, no prior Python required.
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Published motor data
Manufacturer thrust curves and certified-motor performance data — students learn to evaluate propulsion, using the same references engineers use.
Research Ignited is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the developers of OpenRocket, RocketPy, or any other third-party software or data source referenced. Third-party tools are governed by their own licences, and their availability, functionality and terms may change.
What students will do
Eight sessions, from mission requirements to a defended design
Each 90-minute session pairs an aerospace engineering concept with a hands-on analysis task, building toward a complete launch-vehicle design package and a formal review.
Session 1
The Launch Vehicle Engineering Challenge
ConceptFrom objective to requirementsWhat a launch vehicle is, its major subsystems, staging concepts, and the engineering lifecycle: mission → requirements → design → simulation → analysis → review.
DoWrite your missionReceive the Mission ATLAS-1 specification — payload mass, target apogee, flight-time window and mass limit — then turn it into engineering requirements, constraints and success criteria you can actually test a design against.
OutcomeA mission briefMission objective, requirements list and initial vehicle concept.
Session 2
Flight Physics & Aerodynamics
ConceptWhy rockets fly — and why they tumbleThrust, weight, drag, acceleration and altitude; nose-cone and fin geometry; dynamic pressure; centre of gravity, centre of pressure and static margin.
DoBreak your own rocketAlter fin size, fin position, body length and payload mass on a digital vehicle and watch stability change — including making it deliberately unstable.
OutcomeStability analysisAn initial CG/CP and static-margin study.
Session 3
Propulsion Performance
ConceptHow engineers compare motorsHow thrust is produced, mass flow, nozzle principles, burn time, total and specific impulse, thrust curves, motor classes and the rocket equation.
DoRun a motor trade studyCompare published performance data from commercially manufactured motors and measure how each changes acceleration, maximum velocity, altitude and stability.
OutcomeA propulsion trade studyA justified motor selection with the data behind it.
Session 4
Digital Vehicle Design in OpenRocket
ConceptDesign iterationBuilding a full vehicle configuration, reading simulation output, and the engineering loop: design → simulate → analyze → modify → re-simulate.
DoBuild Version 1Create your own launch vehicle and run repeated simulations, recording apogee, maximum velocity and acceleration, time to apogee and stability margin.
OutcomeVehicle v1A complete digital design with a simulation record.
Session 5
Structures, Mass Budget & Recovery
ConceptEvery gram is a decisionStructural trade-offs, dry mass vs. payload mass, strength against weight, recovery-system concepts, descent rate, redundancy and failure modes.
DoBuild a mass budgetProduce a real mass budget, compare configurations, and size a recovery system against a target descent rate.
OutcomeMass & recovery packageA mass budget plus a simulated recovery analysis.
Session 6
Trajectory Analysis & Design Optimization
ConceptComputational aerospace engineeringWhat a six-degree-of-freedom trajectory simulation actually does — position, velocity, acceleration, atmospheric conditions, wind, thrust curve and flight events.
DoFly it in code, then close the gapRun RocketPy from guided notebooks and plot altitude, velocity and acceleration. Then iterate deliberately against ATLAS-1: change motor, mass, drag and parachute size and watch apogee and flight time move in opposite directions, until the design lands on both targets at once.
OutcomeA design that hits the targetA simulation notebook, trajectory charts, and a configuration that meets 1,150 ft and the 62–68 s window nominally.
Session 7
Uncertainty, Margins & Mission Risk
ConceptNo model predicts reality perfectlySimulation assumptions, manufacturing and mass variation, motor performance scatter, sensitivity analysis, Monte Carlo methods, engineering margin, reliability and FMEA.
DoDoes it still hit the target?Run a Monte Carlo dispersion study on the design from Session 6, see how far it scatters around 1,150 ft, identify which variable it is most sensitive to, and build a simplified FMEA with likelihood, impact and mitigation.
OutcomeA design that holds upA sensitivity study, an FMEA table, and a design revised for robustness rather than best-case performance.
Session 8
Mission Design Review
ConceptDefending engineering decisionsHow real design reviews work, what reviewers ask, and how to justify a trade-off rather than simply describe it.
Flight DayFly Mission ATLAS-1Designs are frozen after Session 7 and flown through the randomized Digital Flight Day — unseen wind, motor and mass variation — with scores published before the final session, so every student can explain their own result.
DoPresent and defendDeliver a 5–6 minute Mission Design Review covering objective, requirements, architecture, aerodynamics, stability, propulsion, mass budget, recovery, simulation results, uncertainty, risk, trade-offs and a final recommendation.
OutcomeA defended designYour Digital Flight Day score, the completed review, and reviewer feedback.
Enroll now
Upcoming cohorts
The signature outcome
Launch Vehicle Engineering Portfolio
Students finish with a complete engineering record — not a certificate of attendance, but the documented reasoning behind a vehicle they designed, simulated and defended.
The Mission Design Review
- Mission objective and requirements
- Vehicle architecture and aerodynamic design
- CG / CP and stability justification
- Propulsion performance analysis
- Mass budget and recovery concept
- Simulation results and trajectory analysis
- Sensitivity, uncertainty and FMEA
- Design trade-offs, lessons learned, final recommendation
Your portfolio includes
- Launch-vehicle concept and requirements document
- Complete OpenRocket vehicle configuration
- Stability and static-margin analysis
- Motor performance comparison from published data
- Flight simulation results
- RocketPy trajectory notebook and plots
- Mass budget and design trade study
- Monte Carlo dispersion and FMEA
- Final engineering report
- Mission Design Review presentation + certificate of completion
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Why this travels well: a documented design package with simulation data, an uncertainty analysis and a defended recommendation is something a student can actually talk about — in an application, an interview, or a conversation with a university rocketry team. It shows engineering judgement, which a finished model rocket does not.
Included free with the program
The Rocketry Opportunity Guide
Learning the engineering is step one. Every enrolled family also receives our Rocketry Opportunity Guide — a practical map of how students take these skills into real, physical rocketry through independent rocketry organizations and student competitions.
What the guide covers
- How organized model rocketry works in the U.S. — and why a local club is the realistic on-ramp
- How to find clubs and upcoming launches, and exactly what to ask before you attend
- The skills ladder from model rocketry to high power — and where federal law draws age lines
- The two youth pathways into high power, both of which run through a certified adult
- The student competition landscape for grades 6–12 and what the pathway beyond it looks like
- What university rocketry and satellite teams actually recruit for
- A realistic first-year sequence — including the one exercise that teaches the most
How this works
- We provide the knowledge. The guide explains the landscape, the safety framework and the steps.
- Your family arranges everything. You contact the organization, you join, you attend.
- The organization runs the launch. They provide the site, the waiver, the equipment, the range safety and the go/no-go decision — because that is their expertise, not ours.
- Research Ignited is not affiliated with any of them. No partnership, no sponsorship, no endorsement, no agency relationship. We cannot enroll you and we cannot influence their decisions.
- Nothing here is required. The program is complete without any physical rocketry at all.
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Why this matters more than a kit: a local club has already solved the field, the waiver, the launch equipment and the range safety. What they are usually short of is someone who can explain why a design should work before it flies. A student who arrives able to justify a stability margin, read a thrust curve and show a simulation is a very different arrival than one holding a box.
How we teach
College-level methods. Accessible delivery.
Every session follows the same three beats, so a student with no Python and no rocketry background still does genuine computational engineering from week one.
Beat 1The conceptThe engineering idea in plain language — why static margin matters, what specific impulse really measures, why a Monte Carlo run beats a single simulation.
Beat 2The analysisDo it yourself on your own design, in OpenRocket or a guided notebook, with the instructor working alongside you.
Beat 3The decisionLook at what the numbers say, make an engineering call, and be ready to justify it. That habit is the whole point.
Who it's for
Built for students who want the engineering, not just the launch
Ideal for grades 9–12 and college undergraduates drawn to aerospace, mechanical engineering, physics or computational modeling. No prior rocketry or Python experience required — comfort with basic algebra and reading a graph is enough. No calculus needed.
- Fascinated by rockets and wants to understand why they work
- Enjoys problem-solving, modeling and getting an answer that's defensible
- Interested in learning real Python for engineering, not toy exercises
- Considering aerospace, mechanical or systems engineering
- Wants a portfolio piece with actual technical depth
- Curious about organized model rocketry and wants the engineering first
- An undergraduate looking for simulation and analysis experience
- Preparing to contribute to a university rocketry or satellite team
Real-world skills & tools
What students can actually do afterwards
Skills that transfer well beyond rocketry — to any engineering discipline that models a system before building it:
- Write engineering requirements from a mission objective
- Design and iterate a vehicle configuration in OpenRocket
- Calculate and defend a stability margin
- Read thrust curves and run a propulsion trade study
- Build a mass budget and size a recovery system
- Run 6-DOF trajectory simulations in Python with RocketPy
- Perform sensitivity and Monte Carlo dispersion analysis
- Build an FMEA and reason about engineering margin
- Plot and interpret real simulation data
- Present and defend a technical design review
Where this fits
The Research Ignited aerospace pathway
This is the analytical specialization. It pairs naturally with the broader aerospace foundation and the hands-on hardware build — and none of them is a prerequisite for the others.
✈️
Aerospace & Mission Design Lab
The broad foundation — flight science, drones, satellites and space-mission design.
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Rocket & Launch Vehicle Design Lab
You are here. The computational specialization — design, simulate, quantify, defend.
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CanSat Space Engineering Lab
The hardware build — sensors, GPS, LoRa telemetry and a satellite prototype you keep.
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Aerospace Research Fellowship
1:1 mentorship turning aerospace interest into an original research project.
None is a prerequisite for another — every programme starts from zero. Compare all three →
Reserve your seat
Rocket & Launch Vehicle Design Lab
A premium, analysis-driven engineering program — and there is no hardware to buy.
$999 / student
8 live online sessions (90 min each · ~12 live hours) · small cohort. No kit, no hardware, no additional purchases.
- 8 live sessions with an aerospace / simulation instructor
- Guided OpenRocket design workshops
- Starter Python / RocketPy notebooks — no setup required
- Engineering worksheets and design templates
- Technical support throughout the program
- Instructor review of your Mission Design Review
- Launch Vehicle Engineering Portfolio
- Certificate of completion
🖥️ What you need
A laptop and internet
Windows, macOS or Linux. OpenRocket runs on all three; the Python work runs in a browser.
Free software only
OpenRocket and RocketPy are free and open-source. Notebooks run in a free browser environment.
Recommended background
Comfort with basic algebra and reading a graph. No calculus, and no prior rocketry, CAD or programming experience needed.
Eligibility
Grades 9–12 and college undergraduates. Eligibility is confirmed during enrollment.
Program scope. This is an online engineering design and simulation program. It does not include, and Research Ignited does not conduct, organize, supervise, approve or certify, any physical rocket launch. Research Ignited does not supply, ship or store rocket motors, propellants, igniters or ignition systems, and students do not manufacture propellant, motors, igniters or explosive devices at any point in the program. The program does not provide operational training in high-power rocketry. Designs, simulations and reviews produced in the program are educational exercises and are not certification, approval or a determination that any vehicle is safe or lawful to build or fly; simulation results are estimates and may differ materially from real flight. Students learn about U.S. amateur-rocketry regulation and recognised safety codes as general educational information only — this is not legal advice and not a determination about any specific rocket, motor, site or activity. Any physical model-rocketry a family chooses to pursue is arranged independently by the parent or guardian with organizations of their own choosing, outside this program and outside Research Ignited's control. See our Terms & Conditions, including Schedule A.
Questions students & parents ask
Good to know
Does my student need coding or rocketry experience?+
No. Every session starts from the concept, and all Python work runs from guided starter notebooks in a browser — nothing to install. Students who already code will find plenty of room to go deeper; students who have never written a line will still produce real trajectory analysis. Comfort with basic algebra and reading a graph is the only real prerequisite — the software does the heavy maths, and no calculus is needed.
Do students build or launch a physical rocket?+
No, and that is deliberate. This is a design and simulation program: students complete it with a digital launch-vehicle design and a Mission Design Review. Physical construction and launch are not included in tuition, and Research Ignited does not conduct, organize, supervise or approve rocket launches. Families interested in model rocketry can pursue that independently through organizations of their choosing — that is entirely separate from this program.
Will students learn how to make rocket fuel or motors?+
No. The program teaches propulsion physics and how engineers evaluate propulsion performance using published data from commercially manufactured motors. Students do not manufacture propellant, motors, igniters or explosive devices, and Research Ignited does not supply, ship or provide any of those items.
Is this an FAA-certified or approved program?+
No. It is an educational design and simulation course, not a certification or flight-authorization program. Students do learn the framework — the FAA regulates U.S. amateur rocket operations under 14 CFR Part 101, which distinguishes Class 1 model rockets from Class 2 high-power and Class 3 advanced high-power rockets — as general aerospace education. Research Ignited is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the FAA, NASA, any rocketry association, or the developers of any software used.
Is this high-power rocketry?+
No. The program does not provide operational training in high-power rocketry and does not involve high-power motors in any form. Students learn at a general educational level what distinguishes model from high-power rocketry and how the regulatory framework becomes more demanding — because understanding that distinction is part of an aerospace education.
Will this help with rocketry competitions?+
The engineering skills transfer directly — requirements, stability, motor selection, altitude and duration optimization, simulation and design review are exactly what competition teams need. But we are careful about one line: instructors do not review, advise on or give feedback about a student's actual competition entry, in class or outside it. Most student competitions require the entry to be designed and built by the students themselves, and we protect that. Students learn the method here and apply it independently.
How does this compare to the CanSat lab?+
They teach different halves of the same discipline. CanSat is a hardware build — soldering, sensors, radio telemetry, a physical payload you keep. This program is computational — modeling, simulation, uncertainty and design defence, with no hardware at all. Students who want to make things work should start with CanSat; students who want to understand why a design is right should start here. Many do both.
I'm a college student — is this too basic?+
Undergraduates are welcome and the analytical content holds up. Sessions 6 and 7 in particular — 6-DOF simulation in RocketPy, Monte Carlo dispersion, sensitivity analysis and FMEA — are the methods used on real programs, and the design review follows a genuine review structure. If you would prefer to be grouped with other college-level students, mention it when you enroll or talk to an advisor.
Design a launch vehicle. Then prove it works.
Eight live sessions, professional open-source tools, and a documented engineering portfolio you can actually defend. No hardware to buy.